Celebrating Cully Park Community Garden

The Thomas Cully Park project is located in NE Portland’s Cully Neighborhood, a neighborhood characterized by concentrated poverty, racial diversity, as well as by lack of access to nature and other environmental benefits. In response, Verde and partners have organized the Let Us Build Cully Park! coalition, a collaboration of 15 community-based organizations, including the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, the Cully Association of Neighbors, Hacienda CDC, Latino Network, Native American Youth & Family Center, Portland Community Reinvestment Initiatives, and Verde. Let Us Build Cully Park! is an opportunity to create access to nature, create healthy recreation opportunities, redress a long-standing absence of a park in Cully, educate youth, create economic opportunity for low-income people to participate in the green economy, and build environmental wealth.

The group produced this video of the grand opening to share the story:

The Portland Brownfields Program worked with Let Us Build Cully Park! and community members to examine and approve the environmental conditions at the garden site. The project's web page has a helpful health and safety page that describes how the site evolved into such an asset for the neighborhood and watershed.

Congratulations to the many involved in Let Us Build Cully Park! A truly inspiring story of collaboration and community involvement.